Practicing Dark Skin Tones (NSFW)

With Purgatory starting sending out their Keysha models, I thought it was about time that I got some practice in at painting dark skin tones, as I've never successfully completed one on a mini before!

With that in mind, I attacked my Hasslefree bag (most of which I picked up in a binge, back in October) and came out with Misha, one of several nudes I picked up for just such a purpose. With Misha being a nude mini, some might consider the pictures beyond the jump NSFW.

I started by priming her and giving her a coat all over of deck tan, which is how I now try to start all my skin tones as it's a much warmer base than the grey primer. 

Next was the eyes. I've found doing the eyes first gives you a lot more freedom to play around, as you don't have to worry about messing up a paint job.

She was looking a little like a racoon, so I added some flesh tone to the face to make the eyes look a little more human. 

Once I was happy with the eyes (though I later tweaked them), I started looking for the right tone. I've been told that when it comes to painting skin, it's a good idea to do research, since everyone has skin. 

I eventually settled on wanting to attempt a lighter tone as per Jourdan Dunn, Nathalie Emmanuel (Missandei on GoT) and Lesley Ann Brandt (Maze on Lucifer).

At first, to be honest she looked like a white girl had either gone in for a mud session at a spa or just had a little too much fake tan but after blocking out the colours, it started to come together. 

Once I had the main tones blocked out, I really wanted to attack some shading. Kev White's nudes all have curves, which is great for practicing shading and highlighting skin. 

My blending isn't quite smooth enough yet (across all areas, not just skin tones), but I'm happy with the variation in tone I managed to put down on her. 

I said earlier that I had tweaked her eyes - I had some feedback that her pupils were a little too big, so I attempted to change them and while I made the pupils smaller, I'm not sure I got them 100% right. 

As far as being a test piece goes, I'm pleased with how she turned out and I'm happy with how the tone turned out. I do plan on finishing her at some point and I've already got a base made for her as I plan to try out a marble effect that I chickened out of when doing The Artist's base in January.

As for what colours I used on her, I did have the darker shades from the Scale 75 Flesh set on the palette, along with Ivory and Khaki from Vallejo and one of the darker Citadel browns. What proportions did I use for each tone? I really couldn't tell you...